Apologies for not blogging yesterday; it was the first day that I missed in recent memory, but I missed it because my internet access failed last night and I am currently without a smartphone. The lack of both internet and data-connected phone made me just a little bit crazy -- it's funny how desperate I get for connection when I'm cut off, even though I'm horrible at emailing people back or making use of the internet in any substantive, useful way.
Anyway, we've had a great couple of days. Yesterday we drove to Agra, making it there in time to see the Taj Mahal in the late afternoon. It rained the first time that I went to the Taj Mahal, and so I didn't appreciate the amazing brilliance of the inlaid semi-precious stones on the white marble, but the setting sun on this trip lit everything up. So, it was all gorgeous, and I think my father really liked it. Then we went shopping -- we managed not to buy anything, but we saw the amazing technique of the men who hand-knot the Persian/Kashmiri carpets, and we also saw how they inlay marble. I ended up feeling rude and awful because our tour guide (Vinay; he and his brother Vishal are friends with my friends Chris and Natasha, and they both work in tourism and so arranged everything up here for us) wanted to surprise us by taking us to his home, which would have been awesome, but I had foolishly scheduled meetings for last night. As it turns out, I should have just skipped them and gone to Vinay's house since my laptop/internet died and caused me to miss one of the two, but c'est la vie.
We spent the night in a great hotel that would have given us a view of the Taj from our room if it hadn't rained last night and caused fog/smog this morning to obscure the view. But the bathroom was lovely, and so we both spent too much time showering (likely because the shower the day before left much to be desired) and got a later start than planned this morning. Vinay picked us up and we went to Agra Fort (awesome) and Fatehpur Sikri (which I adored last time -- but this time the president of Romania or some shit was visiting and they had closed all the palaces at Fatehpur Sikri to the public, so we could only tour the mosque, sad). We then dropped him off so that he could return to Agra, and we made the long, slow trek back to Delhi, ending up in Friday rush hour. When we got to Delhi, we picked up Vinay's brother Vishal, who got us checked in to our hotel here (Le Meridien, which is awesome). We had dinner in the great restaurant, and now we're going to go to bed. Tomorrow we're touring Delhi, and then we get on a plane for San Francisco (via Hong Kong) tomorrow night!
The one fly in my ointment is that I'm going to miss the Olympic Opening Ceremonies...but I suppose I'll survive. Pls feel free to leave recaps in the comments so that I can catch up when I get back!
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